June 25, 2007

 

Portion of UK meat and livestock may be contaminated with MRSA

 

 

A MRSA-like virus has been discovered in farm animals and meat in the UK.

 

The MRSA virus Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is believed to be the result of intensive farming and the use of antibiotics to protect livestock. The MRSA can be passed on to humans and spread by them.

 

Like many food bugs, it can be killed by cooking and it is normally dangerous only to those who are already sick. However, like hospital MRSA, its resistance to antibiotics means that it is difficult to treat once an infection has developed.

 

Researchers have found the bug in poultry and livestock animals in the Netherlands, Denmark and other European states. The UK imports thousand tonnes of fresh meat from Europe.

 

It is also believed that the bug is already present in UK farms.

 

Once it is in the human population it lives inside the nose, which means it can be spread through sneezing or contact.

 

A small study by Kingston University in South-West London appears to have found strains of the bug in one out of 50 samples of pork and one of 100 samples of chicken. Tests to establish the exact identity of these bacteria have yet to be completed.

 

The MRSA is believed to have mutated to become immune to the effects of these antibiotics. The Soil Association, the organic farming pressure group, claims to have lifted the lid on it following a pan-European investigation involving academics and politicians, following a letter to the European Commission by Dutch public health minister Dr Cees Veerman in Holland.

 

In what he calls a "worrying development" he said that farm animal MRSA was found in 40 percent of pigs as well as some dairy cows and 13 percent of calves.

 

The bug has also been found in food during a small number of tests carried out last year - in 20 percent of raw pork samples, 3 percent of raw beef and 21 percent of raw chicken. As many as 23 percent of Dutch pig farmers are carriers of the same bug.

 

It is feared that a new form of MRSA - - in raw meat could pose a far greater risk to the general population than the hospital variant.

 

Inquiries into the problem have begun in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, France, Sweden and Belgium.

 

However, the UK's farming and food safety departments have carried out only very limited tests for its presence in livestock - and none at all in meat or among farmers.

 

Experts say thorough cooking and washing hands after handling raw meat should offer protection. However, Dr Mark Enright of Imperial College, London, said the big risk is farmers' transmission of the virus unknowingly to the general population.

 

He said MRSA in itself is not life-threatening except in cases where people are ill for other reasons, where there immune systems are compromised.

 

UK farm ministry Defra assured that no cases of MRSA have recently been recorded and that they are strictly monitoring the virus' progress while the Food Standards Agency has also expressed on keeping a tight watch on the MRSA across Europe.

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